FBI whistleblower exposes alleged pro-Trump bias at the bureau

Insider

In an exclusive interview with Insider FBI special agent Johnathan Buma alleges that the bureau was hungry for intelligence on Hunter Biden, but when his sources fingered Rudy Giuliani, he was shut down.

Transcript

00:00 I didn't want to be a whistleblower.

00:01 I wanted nothing to do with it.

00:02 I was at my wits end.

00:04 I saw important intelligence reporting being suppressed.

00:07 I started to experience what I believed to be

00:09 discrimination, character assassination, really.

00:12 My name is Jonathan Buma, and I'm a FBI special agent.

00:17 When I went and presented to the assistant director

00:26 in charge over at Los Angeles field office,

00:28 he was very interested in the allegations concerning

00:32 potentially implicating the Bidens

00:35 and involved in business deals with Burisma,

00:38 a company that was involved in alleged criminal activity.

00:43 He's very interested, and he was adamant about

00:46 packaging that information up and transferring that

00:49 to the appropriate case agent right away.

00:51 But during the same meeting,

00:53 when I attempted to provide information

00:58 that Rudy Giuliani may have been compromised

01:02 by individuals suspected of being involved

01:05 in Russian counterintelligence influence operations,

01:08 he shut me down and the meeting ended.

01:10 I came to know that Giuliani had received $300,000

01:15 from Pavlo Fuchs, a very powerful businessman

01:21 who had deep ties with a transnational

01:23 organized crime syndicate.

01:25 He was based in Ukraine.

01:26 And that was deeply concerning to me,

01:28 especially having heard that Giuliani had been

01:34 working for the president pro bono.

01:36 My questions that were going through my head were,

01:39 well, who does he really work for?

01:41 I wasn't trying to implicate Trump or do anything

01:44 that would injure his reputation.

01:48 This reporting implicates Giuliani.

01:50 He was the one that was in ongoing contact

01:54 with foreign nationals and political activists

01:58 that would receive hundreds of thousands of dollars

01:59 from these sources.

02:00 And at that time, Joe Biden was not yet

02:02 the Democratic nominee.

02:04 I said to my co-handling agent, I said to him,

02:09 why do they keep going back to the Bidens?

02:12 So what if this is the leading edge

02:14 of a disinformation campaign to create a theme

02:19 of derogatory information about the Bidens

02:22 in anticipation that Biden would be Trump's

02:26 main political rival?

02:28 And I started to experience pushback.

02:30 All of my reporting came under really tight scrutiny

02:33 to the point where I went from getting

02:38 exceptional performance awards to being told

02:43 that I was an inconsistent performer

02:45 and that I had all these administrative,

02:48 I don't have a history of that, 13 years before that.

02:50 So it got to the point where it was pretty intolerable.

02:52 So I filed a whistleblower complaint.

02:54 All FBI agents get annual training concerning

02:57 the protected federal whistleblower statute,

03:00 which says that if you see misconduct in management,

03:04 then you can file a whistleblower complaint

03:07 with the inspection division.

03:08 The managers involved in your chain of command

03:11 are prohibited from committing any acts

03:15 that could be considered reprisal or retaliation.

03:18 From that point forward, the retaliation actually increased

03:23 and I experienced no such protection.

03:25 And there's never any mention or acknowledgement

03:28 outside of an automated email response

03:30 saying we received your information

03:33 and a letter that said we received your information.

03:35 Nothing, no interviews, no anything.

03:37 And an email was sent with a brand new supervisors

03:40 that specifically prohibited me from doing

03:42 any more reporting on criminal matters,

03:46 public corruption matters, or reporting on anyone

03:48 related to the White House or any current

03:51 or former associates of Trump.

03:53 Now I started to experience personal attacks,

03:56 not only suppression of the reporting.

03:58 My reporting was corroborated already at that point.

04:01 So if you can't undercut the reporting,

04:03 you undercut the person.

04:04 So that's what I was experiencing at that point.

04:06 And I was moved to a squad where I couldn't work sources.

04:10 I was sent to basically the Alaska of LA

04:13 and put into a position where it would be

04:15 physically impossible for me to do

04:18 any more source reporting.

04:20 I was never trying to drive the political process

04:22 in one way or the other.

04:23 I was only trying to make sure that everybody

04:24 had all of the information, both sides,

04:28 so that people could make intelligent decisions

04:31 about what they want to do,

04:33 policy makers or voters or whatever.

04:35 (somber music)

04:44 What Chairman Jordan's investigation is alleging

04:47 is that the FBI as a whole is an arm

04:50 of the anti-Trump agenda.

04:52 And that's simply not true.

04:54 There is this allegation out there

04:58 that the FBI slow played the intake of information

05:02 and their diligent effort to investigate

05:06 Burisma and the Bidens.

05:09 What I saw were going on with some of these hearings

05:14 was they weren't getting the full story.

05:15 And I wrote up a statement, went to his office,

05:20 and I told him, "Quite honestly, guys,

05:23 here's what happened.

05:27 I think the management cared a lot about it

05:31 and they wanted a special briefing about it.

05:33 What needs to be said here is,

05:35 I later started reporting on Giuliani

05:37 and I really started to experience some suppression."

05:42 And at that point, they shut me down and they said,

05:45 "No, no, no, we're only interested

05:48 in things related specifically to Biden.

05:50 I don't think it's a legitimate investigation."

05:53 (somber music)

05:56 The reason why I came forward is,

06:04 number one, I don't want any other FBI agent

06:06 to ever have to go through what I've gone through

06:08 and having their right of protection under the statute

06:11 completely blatantly violated.

06:13 Number two, I wanna restore the integrity of the FBI

06:18 so that people have trust and faith in it.

06:20 Because if it's gone, public corruption will become rampant

06:24 and things will go to hell in a handbasket in this country

06:27 real fast, faster than people think.

06:29 If the very agency that's charged

06:32 with holding our public officials

06:34 and the most powerful people in the world accountable

06:37 can't hold its own self accountable

06:39 and becomes corrupt itself,

06:40 then this country, things can get bad real fast.

06:43 It'd be the beginnings of a fascist state.

06:47 They wanna figuratively slaughter me by firing me,

06:50 they can do that, but I have no intention of leaving.

06:52 I'm gonna show up for work.

06:54 I'm gonna continue to show up for work

06:56 in hope of getting a good paycheck

06:58 like any other American really wants.

06:59 (somber music)

07:03 (gentle music)

07:05 (gentle music)

07:08 (gentle music)

07:11 (gentle music)

07:13 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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